Archive for category Music

Permanent Records just released the debut LP from new Indiana group Frankie & the Witch Fingers. They appeared on a brilliant split-EP last year with The Young Sinclairs. This is a great album that sounds like Ty Segall and King Gizzard at the same time.

Perhaps The Frowning Clouds isn’t the most interesting Australian band anymore, as proven by two new bands from opposite ends of the continent. The Good Morrows have finally issued their debut LP after teasing us with the track “I Wanna Know” in 2013. The eastern-tinged “Let It Out” is several levels above that though. If you like Elephant Stone…

The High Learys have picked up pretty much where the Clouds left it with Listen Closelier, raw garage and authentic R’n’B sounds with a bit of jangle. After their first LP Here Come the High Learys, they returned in late 2014 with a new single called “Clear My Mind”. While channeling that original 60s teen spirit, they also have a bit of the flowering 80s Perth scene in them (I’m thinking of bands like The Palisades, Summer Suns and The Stems). At the same time the a-side sounds very close to The Allah-Las. While the flip is not quite as sweet, it also feels more original, and an excellent piece of songwriting.

It’s a wonder that The Young Sinclairs and 13 O’Clock haven’t created magic together yet. But here is the band’s first single of 2015 and it’s one of their best yet. Available from 13 O’Clock since two weeks if one’s to believe their website. Also streaming on Spotify since December.

So came 2015, and another year for RECORD TURNOVER. This will be the year of completing my Masters course in Design, hopefully moving and buying lots more records. Truth be told, I bought few new records last year, and wrote about very few as well. Apologies to everyone I have promised reviews, but I hope you will be happy to at least appear on the blog’s Best of 2014 list, which you can find below. Since it’s already January, I’ve had some time to catch up on other peoples’ lists (most importantly The Styrofoam Drone, Shake Appeal and The Active Listener) and check some of the boxes I’ve missed. Like Dinos Boys, which is about the best thing that’s happened to punk since Cheap Time.

The See See have turned in their strongest LP so far by yard-lenghts, but if I had to pick ONE records it might just have to be Straight Arrows’ longawaited second album. Rising really shows Straight Arrows as the rock-solid center (and originators) of the Australian garage-punk scene of the 2010’s, with it’s base around Melbourne. Angie and Owen have played in and recorded or produced so many bands since releasing the first Straight Arrows LP in 2010. While a lot of other GREAT bands have appeared in Australia since then, most notably King Gizzard, Straight Arrows even finish ahead of their TWO albums of 2014. Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, White Fence, Woods and the usual suspects all released albums, none of which managed to impress me enough to make this list, brilliant as they were. Since Fuzz didn’t release an album it seems almost unavoidable that Chad Ubovich’s own new outfit Meatbodies makes the cut. Equally impressive was the debut from Wand, from whom we can expect another LP in just a few months time, on In the Red. Some of my other favourite new bands, still without releases (but not for long!) are Mexico’s Viv & the Sect and Sweden’s own The Alloy Six.

TOP TEN ALBUMS of 2014

Straight Arrows – Rising HoZac
Doug Tuttle – s/t Trouble In Mind
Cool Ghouls – A Swirling Fire Burning Through the Rye Empty Cellar
The Neumans – s/t Screaming Apple
The See See – Once, Forever And Again The Great Pop Supplement
The Ar-Kaics – s/t Windian
The Shivas – You Know What to Do K
The Young Sinclairs – This Is… Ample Play
Wand – Ganglion Reef God?
Meatbodies – s/t In the Red

While I am compiling the year-end lists for 2014, I’ll be adding records to this Spotify list. I realise there has been a lot of stuff I’ve missed this year, so it’s taking some time to catch up. There has even been a pile of records I have meant to write about during the autumn, but I simply haven’t found the time. This means that next year I will probably switch to more bitesize mentions of records to check out rather than full reviews – so you hopefully won’t miss as much as I have in 2014. Just looking at this playlist, which already contains over 600 tracks, we can definitely conclude that this year has been as great as any year for new music.

If you want a quick catch up, you should read Shake Appeal’s guest lists of 2014, a veritable who’s who of current garage and punk. Pitchfork’s new column Shake Appeal has actually been the lone reason to land on their website again, circa 10 years after it stopped being cool.

Here’s a mix me, Joakim, David and Alessandro made for the MOD-EST weekender, now approaching fast. We picked 4 tracks each, my selections are Beautiful Garden, Del-Vetts, Karo and The Koobas of course. I’m very proud that this mix made it to #4 in the Mixcloud Garage chart (contrary to what is says on the Mixcloud page) and #13 in the RnB chart, during the 7 days that new mixes are trending.